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The following is an opinion contribution and reflects the author’s views alone.
American soft power is in terminal decline – or so we have been told. The Council on Foreign Relations has decried the “the swift decline of American soft power.” The New Republic trumpets that “we are witnessing the fall of the American Empire,” pinpointing the United States’ loss of “cultural dominance” as the key factor. Countless newspapers have bemoaned how the Trump presidency has irreversibly ruined American foreign policy, representing the inflection point in the nation’s waning ability to command respect and admiration worldwide.
But is this true? According to the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy, the United States placed a respectable fourth in its soft power influence in 2018 – certainly not the first place rank that the United States achieved in the first half of 2016, but still above the vast majority of Western democracies, and leagues ahead of China, Russia, Iran, and other so-called strategic rivals. Despite the ally-bashing of the Trump presidency, the U.S. is still one of the world’s most-admired countries and is seen by most nations as a lesser threat than China, Russia, or ISIS. More importantly, this decline is directly linked with people’s dismal confidence in Trump, suggesting that America’s standing in the world will be reinvigorated once the current presidency ends. The United States’ ability to bounce back belies an important fact: American soft power is enduring not because of short-term factors but because of widespread appreciation for the fundamental tenets of American institutions and culture. These foundational ideas, rooted in over two hundred years of history, cannot be negated by one unpopular president and they will ensure that America’s soft power remains unparalleled in the 21st century.
What does the U.S. offer that other countries do not? This is a pivotal question considering the rise of China, which is looking to export its development model and “soft power” to other nations. However, in order to answer this question, we need to go a little further back to the days of the Soviet Union, whose illiberal policies – while admired by some in the West – ultimately engendered a moral and economic catastrophe whose effects remain visible to this day.
The Soviet Union’s image is embodied in Alexandre Dumas’s famous maxim: all for one, and one for all. Idealists believed that the Soviet Union’s disdain of individual economic freedom was a small price to pay for the equitable society it would create. To many laborers suffering under the poor economic conditions of the 1920s and 30s, communism seemed liked an appealing option. Unfortunately, it did not work – Soviet laborers were dirt poor, and even high-ranking party members lived comparatively austere lives. The promise of wealth for everyone never materialized, which pushed Communist governments to enforce ever-greater tyranny. The economic divisions created by the Berlin Wall serves as a stark reminder of communism’s economic failures: East Germany, which was the richest region in the Soviet Union, still possessed a GDP per capita that was one-third that of West Germany. The United States’ economic model, for all its flaws, was perceived as far superior both by those living inside the Iron Curtain and those living outside it. Americans simply lived better – and everyone who had been exposed to external media knew it.
In contrast to the Soviet Union’s obsession with central planning, the American vision was centered around individual freedoms that included the liberty to choose one’s own path in the economic sphere. This is unsurprising: the American constitution guarantees freedom of expression and freedom of conscience, and it is hard to imagine free speech coexisting in a governmental system that impinges on most people’s intrinsic desire to make a decent living. But even discounting communism’s inability to provide a rich-world standard of living, its promise of social equality was still a pipe dream: Communist governments repressed a right to freedom of assembly, preventing people from forming advocacy groups (including trade unions) that fought for better working conditions or a change in government. As one can imagine, this was extremely unappealing for most people, who desired agency in a repressive system that would not permit them to express their beliefs. While the United States’ track record has been less than consistent in dealing with civil society groups, the nation’s long history of peaceful social movements enacting change served as an inspiration for others seeking to do the same.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, virtually all countries have made a pretense of being democratic, with most nations’ constitutions declaring free speech and freedom of association paramount, even if they fail to act on them in practice. These concepts are simply assumed to be the foundations of a successful (and popular government), which serves as a testament to the resilience and popularity of the American model. The United States can truly claim to be the “shining city on the hill” – a country that not only lives up to its founding ideals but is also a guiding light for others.
In a similar vein to the USSR, China offers a noble vision – except that instead of social equality, the Chinese model appeals to one of humanity’s more ignoble desires: money. This model appears to sidestep our previous economics-based justification for the fall of the Soviet Union. If a quasi-Communist nation can ensure GDP growth of 6% for decades on end while pulling hundreds of millions out of absolute poverty, who is to say that the American economic model will inevitably supplant it?
China’s state-directed capitalism may have a claim to working within China, but the American economic model has a much better track record outside of the country. In Japan and Germany – two countries in which the American economic system was forcibly imposed against their will – the system has been a smashing success, bringing two countries completely devastated after World War II into the prestigious ranks of the OECD, an organization of the world’s richest democracies. Other countries that have chosen to adopt an open economic model – including most southeast Asian states, ex-Soviet states like Poland, and the British commonwealth nations – have seen economic growth that has blown past countries with state-managed economies, such as Russia or Iran. Today’s language of economic development is grounded in terms like “liberalization” and “free trade,” “privatization” and “deregulation,” among many other terms that are hallmarks of American economic governance. This model continues to be attractive, particularly in developing countries in Africa where approval of the United States often tops 70%. Despite a major recession and increasing inequality, the United States’ economic system still retains its allure, even in the poorest regions of the world.
Compare this to China’s perception in developing countries, which is uniformly negative in the poor countries that are most exposed to Chinese trade and investment. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the most likely one is that locals see Chinese investment as largely serving Chinese interests, rather than their own. This is particularly true in the East African countries where Chinese investors have been particularly active, which have seen widespread discontent over the relatively few benefits (including labor income and profits) that are spread to locals. A country that adopts the Chinese economic model will benefit the Chinese – while the American economic model of free trade and open competition benefits everyone.
We often hear about how America’s cultural exports make it a “soft power superpower.” American culture is ubiquitous, and American products adorn the world’s shelves. Coca-Cola is the most popular drink in virtually every country. People in most countries wear American-style clothing. American films dominate cinemas – even in China. China or Russia cannot match this, regardless of how much they try. But America’s appeal lies more than its consumer goods. The reason why the United States can be admired by so many different cultures and nations is because of the inherent liberalism that exists within its population. This is not “liberalism” in the left-right sense, but rather in the context of openness to diversity and tolerance of other cultures.
This idea of pluralism is inherent in American culture and political practices. The United States is the world’s pre-eminent immigrant nation, welcoming more than 1 million new immigrants per year, and hosts generations of arrivals from every country on Earth. This diversity makes the United States an inherently tolerant nation, open to new ideas and ways of being from people all around the world. This liberalism is baked into the U.S. constitution, which does not presuppose the dominance of any one group and instead promises freedom of religion and speech for all.
Compare to this to the uniformity and homogeneity of China, which is 92% ethnic Han, and where non-state sponsored religious activity is suppressed. Countries subject to Chinese economic investment and inflows of Chinese laborers cannot help but suspect that there is an ulterior motive in play, particularly for those countries that experienced European colonization. But when American firms show up – especially those with international subsidiaries run by Americans who are immigrants from the host country – the perception by the local population is vastly different. Openness to immigration is an essential component of the United States’ appeal: if everybody is welcome in America and can participate in its most successful corporations, then there is less reason to believe that the U.S. government is acting purely for the sake of harming a certain country’s interests. This plurality of ethnic groups also prevents the U.S. from being perceived as a homogenous impartial power bent on subjecting “others” to its will. By virtue of its peoples’ diversity of interests and cultures and its open economic system, America’s interests are other countries’ interests too, which is of tremendous value in maintaining the United States’ soft power.
Even if people in other countries are becoming more attune to governance issues within the United States, it is difficult to see any other power usurping America when it comes to the world’s perception of it as the standard-bearer of democracy and freedom. According to a recent Pew poll, the vast majority of nations would still rather have the United States as the world’s leading power, topping China by a margin of 44 points. The shining city on the hill remains strong, and American soft power will live to see another day.
Jacob Brown’s piece is part of the Tory’s Saturday Essay series, selected for the spotlight by Editor-in-Chief Akhil Rajasekar. Follow the Tory on Facebook and Twitter to start your weekend with the best of our content.
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